Senna: “Great start” for HRT

Bruno Senna believes that his HRT team are off to a “great start” following their maiden run in Bahrain today.

Senna set 3 installation laps in the first session, and 17 in the second. He finished 11 seconds off the pace of the leaders. Despite this, Senna believes that it is a relief to finally hit the track:

"It was certainly a relief to make history this morning. The car ran
as planned and everyone is happy and proud. There is still a lot of
work ahead of us.
Three laps this morning and seventeen this afternoon is a great start.
Of course, we could not try the car at its limits.
I am confident that we will be working ahead and I want to congratulate
my mechanics, engineers and the whole team for their incredible hard
work."

Eh, sure. If you were watching Friday practice live today (a true F1 fan would!), you would have seen the huge problems Senna faced. First of all, on the onboard cameras, we saw him fighting for control even in the slow sections of the lap. On the external cameras, the car’s suspension looked all over the place, when examined closely.

I suppose the firing up and first running of the car is an achievment, but it should not be one that should be taken as any form of success in Formula 1. They were 11 seconds off the pace, for gods sake. Jean Todt has said that he wants the 107% rule reinstated (post coming up in a few minutes about this), and hopefully this should make sure that the “great start” for HRT doesn’t turn out to be a complete liability.